Who We Are

Innovative Total Tobacco Company

The second-largest tobacco company in the United States, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company makes many of the nation’s best selling cigarette brands, including Camel, Pall Mall, Doral, Kool, Winston and Salem. R.J. Reynolds provides adult tobacco consumers with the highest quality products and is an innovation leader in the industry.

R.J. Reynolds takes great pride in the principled and responsible manner in which we conduct ourselves and our business. We are proud of the fact that we abide by these rules while continuing to effectively compete for the business of adult tobacco consumers.

The company's overall objective is to increase growth brand share of market, and effectively manage its support brand and non-support brand portfolios. Effective management of our cigarette brand portfolio provides financial resources to invest in product and packaging innovation in both the cigarette and modern, smoke-free tobacco categories, resulting in sustainable profit growth, and superior relationships with retailers and adult tobacco consumers.

History

Tobacco Pleasure Since 1875

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company was founded in 1875, when 25-year-old Richard Joshua Reynolds started a chewing-tobacco manufacturing operation in the town of Winston, N.C. (Winston would later merge with the nearby village of Salem, creating the city known today as Winston-Salem.)

Around the same time, in the late 1870s, Brown Brothers Tobacco Manufacturing Co. was the largest tobacco company in nearby Mocksville, N.C. It was operated by George Brown and his brother, Rufus, who were sons of a tobacco merchant. In 1893, George Brown formed a new partnership with his brother-in-law, Robert Williamson, whose father owned two tobacco factories. Then the new company, Brown & Williamson, leased a small facility, hired 30 employees, and began manufacturing in February 1894.